Читать книгу THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES: An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures - Lucy Cooper - Страница 103

The curious phenomenon of a troop of fairies discovered bathing in the health-giving waters of Ilkley Wells in the north of England is recounted in the 1878 edition of the Folk-Lore Record. A local resident asks the villagers what kind of things these fairies were, and they usually maintain that they are active little beings and resemble the human form, that they are “lill folk, and always dressed in green, but so agile that no-one [can] ever come up to them.” The bathman, William Butterfield, who looks after the Wells, further describes how he came to open up the baths one morning and had great trouble with the door, until:

… with one supreme effort, he forced it perfectly open, and back it flew with a great bang! Then whirr, whirr, whirr, such a noise and sight! all over the water and dipping into it was a lot of little creatures, all dressed in green from head to foot, none of them more than eighteen inches high, and making a chatter and jabber thoroughly unintelligible. They seemed to be taking a bath, only they bathed with all their clothes on. He shouts, ‘Hallo there!’ then away the whole tribe went helter skelter, toppling and tumbling, heads over heels, heels over heads, and all the while making a noise not unlike a disturbed nest of young partridges.

The water is left “still and clear” and William Butterfield never sees them again.